Read back: The final night of Sanremo 2018 in Italy

Tonight we will see the most classy and prestigious music competition in the world: The Sanremo Festival in Italy. RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, will once again select its Eurovision hopeful via the internationally acclaimed Italian song contest. The winner of tonight’s competition will be offered the golden ticket to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.

You can watch the 2018 Sanremo Song Festival’s Grand Finale from 20:40 CET through this link, and join our editor Sadie Trent who will provide a live blog below!

All of 20 final acts performed earlier in the week. Those scores will not be counted tonight, as a different percentage baring is given to tonight votes from the juries and the tele-voting public.

Most recent comment will appear at the top.

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01:17

And the winner is…. Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro. What a surprise.

00:39

WOW! what a shock. Nina and The Kolors did NOT make it to the super final. The 3 super finalists are:

Annalisa – Il mondo prima di te

Lo Stato Sociale – Una vita in vacanza

Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro – Non mi avete fatto niente

The latter 2 songs are surprise additions to the super final this evening.

We are finally on our last song of the night. This song is a mix of jazz /pop/contemporary. The voices of this duet do not really work together, however I like the sound of the song, and how the beats are. Separately the voices are ok, but together, they do not work as well. The guitar rift in the middle is not needed at all. They are wearing black suits, one is wearing a blue shirt and the other is wearing a black shirt. Not suitable for Eurovision.

23:59 – Le Vibrazioni – Così sbagliato

Another rock song, on the same par as the one by The Kolors. The male voice in this song compliments the song really well, and it is not really overpowering. He is able to reach the high notes in the song, I think this COULD do POTENTIALLY do well at Eurovision, but it is hard to tell. The main singer is wearing all black but again is extremely casual, which suits the tone of the song and his staging. The song has power and builds up to a decent ending.

23:54 – Mario Biondi – Rivederti

Another song that sounds like it could be a Bond theme. Mario has an extremely deep husky voice, like that of a baritone. I do not think this song would suit Eurovision at all. However his voice is reaching all of the notes in the song and is holding them extremely well. He is powerful in parts and this song builds up to the middle and end. He is wearing a blue jacket with black embellishments. So this must be a popular look for tonight. The power of the song drops slightly towards the end. On that note, it was an ok-ish performance. Not one for Eurovision though.

23:43 – Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro – Non mi avete fatto niente

Another male duet looking very casual tonight. They are performing the song with such power and emotion. It is a cross between contemporary, jazz and pop with some rick elements. Again this song is a little packed, maybe this is why they are unable to show their vocal abilities properly? This song is extremely quick in parts. However, their voices suit this genre of song, and they work well together as a team. They are wearing blue jackets with black embellishments with the rest of their outfit all back, going for the casual look. Not the best or the worst in this half of the competition.

23:38 – Noemi – Non smettere mai di cercarmi

Another powerful voice, and Noemi’s voice is unique. The words in the song are really packed together. Maybe less words would help the song be more structured. It is about quality not quantity. However, saying that, like Nina, she is hitting ALL of the high notes in the song, and holding all of the high notes. I wonder if this could be another shock tonight? She is wearing a long black dress that really compliments her figure.

23:33 – Nina Zilli – Senza appartenere

Nina is an absolute stand out performer. This song would go down an absolute storm in Lisbon. She was one of the top 2 on night 1 along with Annalisa. Her song has power, structure and suits the stage and setting well. She is wearing a nice off white dress with bits of Green in it. She looks at home on the stage. She is also moving around during this which is more than a lot of the acts have done. She is hitting ALL the notes in this song as well. I think she will certainly advance to the super final, will be shock if she doesn’t/

23:17

Another add break, so lets see who the stand out acts are so far. For me it is Annalisa, The Kolors and Giovanni Caccamo. Former Italian representative Nina Zilli is still yet to perform.

23:12 – Diodato & Roy Paci – Adesso

This song is getting the audience going in the theatre. Not many songs have done that tonight. One guy is playing the trumpet, and that is really impressive. The singing and the trumpet works really well together with the orchestra for this song. This is like a big band song, another one that doesn’t have one set genre. The male voice does need a bit of work where the words are quick and close together, where they are spaced out, the power in his voice is stunning. Another stand out. Both males are wearing all black suits with black tshirts underneath keeping up with the casual tones in the song.

23:07 – Roby Facchinetti & Riccardo Fogli – Il segreto del tempo

Another powerful ballad, both male voices harmonise well. This song has a lot of power in it, and it builds all the way until the end. The best ballad so far tonight. One guy is wearing a grey glitter jacket and all black and the other guy is wearing all balack with a glitter shirt. They get on well as a singing duo.

22:57 – Lo Stato Sociale – Una vita in vacanza

This sounds like a football anthem. Not the sort of song you would hear at Eurovision. More the song yo would hear at a world cup. The male vocalist was weaing a salmon suit, with chinos and a white shirt. Nothing special, song was alright, his voice was lacking power, song had no high notes, this song was about fun more than anything.

22:46 – Giovanni Caccamo – Eterno

A slow but powerful ballad from Giovanni. His song and voice has power. The orchestra really adds strength to this song. Giovanni is doing really great with this song. The strongest male soloist so far tonight. He is wearing an all black suit with a white shirt, he has also gone casual, which suits the style and tone of this song. He has worked wonders with this song. Could this song prove to be a shock?

22:40 – Ornella Vanoni feat. Bungaro & Pacifico – Imparare ad amarsi

The lead female vocalist has a Dame Shirley Bassey vibe about her. This sounds like it could be a bond theme tune, it has that film score vibe about it. The voices of the female and male harmonise extremely well. Their outfits are amazing too. The lady is wearing a long asymmetric blue dress, and the man is wearing an all back suit whilst playing the guitar.

22:35 – Decibel – Lettera dal Duca

An extremely deep voice which does not match the song at all. The song was a total mash up of jazz and a tiny bit of rock. Not much to say on this one really. By far the worst act so far.

22:24 – Renzo Rubino – “Custodire”

This song is a mix up of many genres. Pop, Jazz, swing, blues, you name it, it is probably there. Renzo’s voice is really weak and not suited to this song AT ALL, he is struggling to reach even the middle notes of this song, so he is unable to go up any further. He is dressed for the occasion though in a black tie suit, so 10/10 for effort.

22:15 – Annalisa – Il mondo prima di te

She is the favourite tonight. Amazing powerful faster than your average ballad, everything about this set was perfect. She was wearing a long hold dress, and everything, her voice, the orchestra and instruments worked together.

22:09 – Max Gazzè – La leggenda di Cristalda e Pizzomunno

A lovely ballad played on a huge gold harp. Sadly Max isn’t playing the harp himself though. His voice matches the song well, although it could do with a bit of work. The staging is plain and he isn’t moving around much. His jacket is amazing though. Black velvet with silver Italian embellishments. The song itself is pretty slow, but there is structure to it.

22:02

Now we have an act from the junior version of San Remo. An eventual representative at Eurovision, or will we some of them at Junior Eurovision in the future?

21:50 – Ron – Almeno pensami

A very slow melodic ballad from Ron, his husky voice works well with this song. He, like one of the previous act is playing one his own instruments. There is not a lot of structure to this song, which is what will let it down. He is wearing a black suit with a white shirt, but is a lot more casual than everyone else so far. Not the best, but not the worst.

21:45 – Elio e le Storie Tese – Arrivedorci

This song has no power, no build up or anything to it. Plus there is too many of them to take to Eurovision, there is 7 of them. All of the voices work together though, harmonise well with the orchestra. This is the one thing Eurovision lacks. This is a proper show tune so doesn’t really fit into one genre as such. All of them men are wearing proper black tie suits. Over all, a pretty lacklustre performance from these guys.

21:24

That was the amazing Laura Pausini. Singing one of her new tracks in Italian. She was wearing a stunning all black dress and she would be an amazing representative for Italy if she ever decided to have a go.

21:12 – The Kolors – Frida

The lead singer has that Kristian Kostov vibe about him. He has the same style as Kristian, but his voice is a lot deeper. This is more of a contemporary rock song song which I think would do well at Eurovision. Much better than your average rock song. He was wearing all black which fitted in well. He is also multi skilled as he played the guitar throughout the song as well.

21:07 – Red Canzian – Ognuno ha il suo racconto

This is a decent solid rock song. His outfit doesn’t match the genre of the song though, he is wearing a black and red jacket and everything else is all black. His vocals are doing well against the song, but as with the first song, power still lacks, but there is more power than the first song. The backing vocals are carrying him through this song.

20:54 – Luca Barbarossa – Passame er sale

Luca is one of a few former Eurovision acts in the running tonight. His voice has aged over the years, not the sort of big song you would expect to see at Eurovision. Technically and vocally he is very weak, and if he were to win, he would need to put in a lot of work. This song is hard to describe, it sounds as though it is a song you would hear in a musical or something along those lines. He is definitely dressed for this classy occasion though, in an all black outfit. Sadly not a great start to the show from one of our former Eurovision participants.

1 Comment

It is interesting to know how people see things differently abroad… Actually, Meta&Moro were the favourite even before Sanremo began! Here some reasons: 1) They have become very popular after Sanremo 2017; 2) Their song is about an important theme (terrorism); 3) It is “catchy” (I hope it’s the right word), in fact it’s the most played song on Italian radios and the most downloaded on Italian iTunes. Personally, I LOVE it (plus, Moro has always been one of my favourite singers).
Lo Stato Sociale, a niche band before Sanremo, were the second favourite. Some people defined them “the 2018 Gabbani” (out of the box; snappy, ironic and funny song; not fluorescent sweaters, but funny t-shirts; not a monkey, but an extraodinary 83-year-old rock acrobatic dancer on the stage(!)).
Nina Zilli and Noemi (unlike Annalisa) weren’t among this year’s favourites. Their songs weren’t bad, but many agree that both did better songs (some listening advices: “Per sempre” and “Sola” by Zilli, “Per tutta la vita” and “Sono solo parole” by Noemi).
As to The Kolors, their ninth place was really a surprise, because their piece is already a “tormentone” (power hit) and they were among the favourites, even though they weren’t expected to end up in the top three.
Other favourites: Ron, Max Gazzé (a suggestion: try to find a translation, this song is so beautiful and moving that the sixth place isn’t enough), and Ornella Vanoni.
To sum up, this year Sanremo has given no surprises.
Sorry for the long post, I know that nobody asked for an Italian point of view, but here it is, if anyone is interested 😉